Shares rose all five days and jumped as high as $1.77 on Friday. The stock, which closed a week ago at 68 cents, climbed to its highest level since April.

On Thursday more than 50 million shares changed hands, the single highest one-day amount for RadioShack at least since November 1984, according to FactSet. By 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, RadioShack traded six times its average daily volume.

“You have a lot of retail guys looking at a low-priced stock like this and thinking ‘why not take a flier,’” said Sahak Manuelian, managing director at Los Angeles brokerage Wedbush Securities Inc.. “People love being all over a cheap stock that has momentum building upon itself.”

Standard General has held talks with RadioShack about ways to finance some or all of the company’s debt, including the loan package provided by its term lenders, according to a person familiar with the matter. Several RadioShack bondholders this month also formed an ad hoc group to approach the company and discuss its options but haven’t committed to a plan, according to another person familiar with the matter.

Four investment funds have snapped up most of RadioShack’s unsecured bonds over the past few months, according to two people familiar with the matter: Standard General, BlueCrest Capital Management, SMH Capital Advisors and GSO Capital Partners, a unit of Blackstone LP.

A RadioShack representative declined to comment.

RadioShack’s recent move is a stark contrast for a stock stuck in a deep downtrend. Analysts have mostly written off the company’s stock, with one slapping a $0 price target on it in June and saying there was “no recovery in sight.” The New York Stock Exchange last month warned RadioShack of a potential delisting after the stock traded below $1 for 30 straight days.

Still, investors have pounced on the chance to make a quick profit. Activity in the options market was elevated throughout the week. RadioShack’s implied volatility, a measure of investor expectations for future stock swings and a key component of an option’s price, jumped on Thursday to its highest level in at least two years, according to data from Livevol Pro.

And it’s not just this week that options traders have piled into RadioShack. Open interest, reflecting the number of active options contracts, surged to 834,990 contracts Thursday from 175,186 on Dec. 31, according to Trade Alert.

“This has become a day-trader’s playground and I think that’s going to continue,” said Sean Moran, a 27-year-old day trader living in San Diego. He said the stock came on his radar once it fell below $1 and for the past four weeks he has traded RadioShack options. “RadioShack has definitely fallen out of favor and most think they’re dead and forgotten, but that’s usually the time to buy,” he said.

Market participants have also attributed RadioShack’s big rally to investors who had bet against the stock but then reversed those positions in droves, otherwise known as a “short squeeze.”

Short sellers borrow shares to sell them with the hope of buying them back at a lower price and pocketing the difference.

As of Friday, about 16.7% of available RadioShack shares were on loan to traders looking to short the company, according to market data firm Markit. That figure was up from a recent low of 10.5% in early July, suggesting an increasing number of investors had been betting against the stock prior to this week’s rally.

“You have a lot of shorts who were betting the company was going to go bankrupt and are now bailing out right, left and sideways,” said James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University.

Markit

The company has a long road ahead. Even amid the recent rally, the stock is still stuck in a yearslong downtrend. It reached a low of 55 cents earlier this month. By comparison, the stock traded above $20 as recently as late 2010 and peaked near $80 in 1999.

Without a cash infusion, RadioShack could face a cash crunch sometime next year, according to Moody’s Investors Service, which warned last month that RadioShack may not have the time or cash for a turnaround. As of May 3, the company had $61 million in the bank, down from $180 million at the end of 2013.

The company said in June that it had enough cash to last at least through the middle of next year, an estimate contingent on an immediate improvement in sales and margins.

Even if RadioShack were to get a rescue package, analysts warn that more cash won’t necessarily solve the company’s long-term problems. RadioShack “needs much more than just a refinance in order to correct the overhanging issue of ongoing fundamental weakness,” said B. Riley’s Scott Tighman, the analyst with a $0 price target on RadioShack.

Even so, day traders have pounced all over RadioShack, hoping for the best.

“I see 50,000 idiots throwing money at this thing and I’m just trying to grab some of it out their pockets,” said Thad Kaylor, a 45-year-old day trader from Chatham, Ill. Mr. Kaylor said he traded in and out of RadioShack on Thursday and Friday.

“I know RadioShack, I know they’re struggling and I know what’s going on in the brick-and-mortar industry, but I’m trading on emotion and out of greed thinking it is going to keep going up and up,” he said. “I know it’s a gamble.”